


it goes like this

by Senatsu



Category: Code: Realize, Code:Realize ～創世の姫君～ | Code: Realize - Guardian of Rebirth (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M, Happy Ending, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Trans Male Character, trans!Lupin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:01:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22904386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Senatsu/pseuds/Senatsu
Summary: based in a timeline offshoot of Lupin's route.Lupin thinks privately that while he likes to be kept on his toes, his current band of friends are far better at it than he thinks he’s actually prepared for. And boy isn’t that terrifying to admit.Especially when he's catching Feelings for two of them at the same time.
Relationships: Arsène Lupin/Abraham Van Helsing (Code: Realize), Cardia Beckford/Abraham Van Helsing, Cardia Beckford/Arsène Lupin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is primarily based off Lupin's route, with a few extra details added from the individual routes, and some rewrites at the tail end to establish Van/Cardia at the beginning of the story to kick things off. it contains spoilers from all routes.

It goes like this: 

There’s something up with Van and murder and Azoth, Fran gets a warrant RE-issued for his arrest and there’s a run-in with an entire underground FACILITY of a potent killer poison called Zicterium, Impey has an escapade and a near-miss with Nemo that has absolutely nothing to do with the airship race and somehow STILL doesn’t get his damn Gravity Allevi-whatever back, Saint-Germain is like, dead but not and has higher ups that are literally higher up than anyone Lupin’s ever known, and somehow every single bit of that chaos is tied in with the terrorist plans - aka Code: Realize - that Lupin has been tracking all along. 

Lupin thinks privately that while he likes to be kept on his toes, his current band of friends are far better at it than he thinks he’s actually prepared for. And boy isn’t that terrifying to admit. 

The plus sides of all of these things coming to a head are that they _really_ know what they’re in for when Cardia is captured by Finis and her awakening father and brought aboard Nemo’s monstrosity ship, The Nautilus. And when you know what you’re in for, you can plan accordingly, and Lupin is nothing if not the most masterful planner in the world. (Even if Cardia does have a point about all the failed plans.) 

Yet no plan in the world could have prepared Lupin for what happens to Van. 

Everything is going fairly smoothly, with Fran and Impey breaking off from the group to track Nemo and retrieve the precious object that Impey has been after this whole time, incidentally the only thing allowing the Nautilus to stay aloft in all its massive glory. 

Saint-Germain then slips off on his own as well to intercept a fellow Apostle of Idea who has, predictably, arrived to put an end to Cardia and all threats created by her existence. 

Sholmes disappeared the moment they entered the ship, and Lupin doesn’t care _one single bit_ where he went! Probably. Maybe. The guy can clearly take care of himself, anyway, and Lupin has a girl to resteal! 

It’s Lupin and Van, then, heading for the end together, to meet Isaac Beckham one last time and take Cardia back home once and for all, putting an end to this madness and violence. 

Which would have worked, except for one Jimmy A. Aleister stepping out into the dim light of a cargo hold… and revealing himself not only as Azoth, the man behind the abrupt skyrocketing of violence and crime in London, but also as the one who had forced Van into murdering a whole host of vampires… and then had himself murdered Van’s family. 

Lupin feels, in that moment, a rare murderous instinct of his own, his hand gripping his cane so tightly that he’s surprised it doesn’t snap… so _this_ is the snake behind everything that had made their friend’s heart so heavy. The reason why Van had forced himself into a life of solitude, so as to leave no broken pieces behind him when his quest finally lead to revenge and his own death. To say nothing of the lives lost all over London at Aleister’s hand… 

But before Lupin can do a damned thing about it, he is forced out of the red haze in his head by the sound of - bizarrely, eerily - a… Bible verse, or a prayer, falling from the lips of the villain in question… and Van’s resulting sounds of pain, his guns clattering to the floor as his hands clutch his head, almost as though it is splitting apart between them. 

Lupin can’t remember those next moments all that clearly, when he thinks back on it now.

He remembers Aleister telling Van that Lupin is his true enemy, the one behind his pain, with the express purpose of forcing Van to kill a dear friend with his own hands. 

He remembers seeing the burning red gleam in Van’s clouded gaze. 

He remembers Aleister departing from the room, saying something of his own part in Isaac’s “brilliant” plan, how he can’t wait to see Van once his masterpiece is complete. 

And then it’s him, and Van, and the two guns with which Van is suddenly ready to end Lupin’s life. Lupin makes a few poor attempts at some smoke and mirrors to escape without harming his friend… only for Van’s already incredible reflexes, now honed all the sharper and more deadly by Hidden Strength being activated, to trap Lupin all over again. In his struggles, he takes perhaps the worst beating he’s suffered in years. Really, that man is too strong for anyone’s good, it’s entirely unfair…! 

Then, the feeling of his friend’s hand at his throat, the sight of the pain that burns in the backs of Van’s hazy eyes, the motion of tears slipping down his enraged expression... 

All the while, there is a painful awareness of the clock ticking down on the time until Cardia’s life will be over and they will be able to do nothing to save her. 

“So kill me,” Lupin says at last, a smile on his face and his voice clear and strong, one gloved hand grasping Van’s wrist. “Kill me and end your suffering, Van. Free yourself… and _go get her **back**_.” 

The words strike their target straight in the heart. Van makes a sudden, broken sound in return, and a gunshot goes off…

...but Lupin opened his eyes to see that the gun is pointed over his shoulder, the barrel now smoking, and then Van stumbles back, clutching his head, throwing his gun to the floor once more. Thinking quickly to what he knows of Delly and Neuntote being briefly freed from the hold of Hidden Strength’s power, Lupin follows right after his friend, raises his cane…

...and whacks him soundly on the back of the head. 

Not enough to knock him out, of course, but enough that there is a sudden string of sailor-level cursing that Lupin would have immediately covered Cardia’s ears for, followed immediately by rueful, mumbled gratitude, and full clarity returning to Van’s eyes at long-last. 

Lupin waves him off, then proceeds to slump against a crate, bleeding and bruised, a crooked smile on his face. Van is clearly shocked and more than a little worried, stepping near as if to check him over and help him up, but Lupin waves him off a second time. 

“Go get our princess…” he says, more order than request, and this is enough to get Van’s attention as he is forced to realize how much time they’ve probably lost already. 

With a barely audible mutter of “Don’t die, you damn cutpurse” tossed over his shoulder, Van vanishes out the cargo bay and takes off in pursuit that Lupin can no longer join him for. 

After that, Lupin’s memory is still a blur, mostly of pain and fumbling self-first-aid until Fran and Impey catch up with him and Fran is able to fix him up a bit better, and then all of them departing the ship to wait with bated breath for the pair that remain on board. 

Lupin is a patient man, infamously good at the game of the long wait. 

But that wait is the hardest of his whole damn life, watching to see if Van and Cardia will make it out alive, no matter what he says to the others about believing that they will. 

The relief he feels when they finally spot their friends falling from the ship’s destroyed edge while clinging to each other for dear life is… well. 

A feeling Lupin won’t soon forget. 


	2. Chapter 2

He’s forgotten that feeling.

“ _ **VAN HELSING, GET YOUR ASS INTO MY OFFICE RIGHT THE H E L L NOW**_!” 

Lupin can only imagine how startled the rest of the mansion’s inhabitants are to hear his voice in such an uncharacteristic roar, but he also _can’t be buggered to c a r e_. 

It’s only minutes before Van strolls into the mansion room Lupin has adapted into an office space, hands in his pockets and looking _more_ casual than ever, propping himself against the doorway with a single raised eyebrow. Yet to Lupin, the wait feels like years, and he is certain he’s about to burst multiple veins in his temples. 

“What the HELL is this?!” he demands, shoving a paper into Van’s face that’s been crushed at one side as if by particularly angry grip. 

Van makes a disgruntled sound and pulls the paper down into one hand to eye it. 

Then he snorts.

As in, with _laughter_. 

“What, this?” he says, smoothing out the wrinkled edges of the incredibly large bill that is addressed to one Arsene Lupin from one _Herlock Sholmes_. “We needed the help. He helped.” 

“We needed any help _except his_!” Lupin yells, throwing his hands up in the air. “And what sort of highway robbery is this charge?! He could buy Buckingham Palace for that amount! Does he think I’m made of money?!” 

Van looks entirely unaffected by Lupin’s bluster, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorway again. “Just go back to the blackjack tables,” he suggests, the corner of his mouth curling up in a smirk. “I promise not to show up and shoot you out this time.” 

Lupin g r o a n s and sinks back into his desk chair, putting his elbows on the table and his head in his hands. “Like I said, I’m banned from there for doing too well last time!!!” It comes out far more like a whine than he wants it to… but he’s allowed to sulk! He’s fully justified in these circumstances!!! He’ll be paying off this debt to his worst nemesis into eternity!!! 

What he doesn’t expect is to feel a gloved hand gently ruffling the back of his hair, right between where his hands clutch. 

By the time he looks up again, startled, Van is already back at the doorway and about to step out of it into the hall, one hand on the frame. 

“Don’t worry, I’ll help out,” he says, the smirk turning into something suspiciously like a full on grin as he disappears from Lupin’s sight. 

Lupin doesn’t know how long he stares at the empty doorway other than “an embarrassingly long time thank God no one was watching.” But he stares and stares and stares and touches the back of his mussed hair and tries to figure out _what the h e l l just happened._

\--

Another morning, Lupin passes the dining room just in time to witness Cardia about to eat a late breakfast. Van is in the room with her, which comes as no surprise, considering how near-inseparable the two have been ever since the grand finale of everything - especially now that she’s completely poison-free, forever. 

But what makes Lupin stop dead in his tracks is that he catches sight of Van laying out the meal for Cardia. 

A meal that Impey definitely didn’t cook.

A meal that Cardia also didn’t cook.

Which means it’s a meal that Van definitely DID cook. 

Lupin backpedals faster than Saint-G has ever dodged a question and flies into the room, skidding over next to Cardia, sweating bullets the whole way. 

“W-WAIT!” he says, having literally not thought this through for even two seconds and now realizing he doesn’t know what the hell to follow up with. 

They’ve all already told Cardia about the toxic dangers that are Van Helsing’s cooking. 

She knows damn well. 

But how Lupin is meant to ask her why she’s making the potentially fatal choice of eating Van’s food when the man himself is _standing right there next to her,_ Lupin… really doesn’t know. 

“D. Don’t you… want something a little lighter, Cardia?” he fumbles, flying by the seat of his pants. “It’ll be lunch time soon, ahaha… don’t want to spoil your appetite!” 

“Oh, but… Van made this for me…” she says, looking up at Lupin with a fork prepared of food already in her hand, and though she’s merely stating what Lupin has already deduced, the expression of adoration in her eyes tells him that she knows exactly what she’s about to do, and that she has no regrets at all. 

If that isn’t true love, Lupin doesn’t know what is.

He sighs, shoulders sagging a little, though he quickly straightens them. “Well! Far be it from me to keep you from such a romantic feast, then!” 

Cardia closes her eyes in a smile, a little giggle into her hand, and then she lifts the fork to her mouth, tucking in the first bite of the soft, fluffy pancake that sits before her. 

Her eyes get wide. Very, very wide. Her mouth falls open. 

Lupin’s reflexes wind up, spring-loaded, ready to send him flying again to retrieve the nearest waste bin should she need to be ill into it--

“It’s good…!” she says, delight lacing every inch of her tone, and within a single breath she’s taken a second bite of it. 

Lupin stares. 

Cardia eats a third bite, and a fourth, and her eyes are sparkling and her cheeks are rosy and--

\--Lupin steals the fork from her before he can think twice about it, ignoring her sound of shock and protest, stuffing the fifth bite of pancake into his mouth. 

It… is sweet. And soft. And fluffy. And melting all over his tongue with buttery, cakey goodness. 

Lupin points the fork at Van. 

“ _You_ cooked this?!” 

Van’s expression is neutral but for the familiar raising of an eyebrow. “Yeah.” 

“No you didn’t!” Lupin says, still pointing the fork. “There’s no way you could have--” 

There’s something unreadable bleeding slowly into the corners and edges of his friend’s expression, and Lupin feels like he SHOULD recognize it, but he doesn’t. “Hn? I told you, cooking is my hobby.” 

“But that--that’s--you--” the thief splutters, the fork starting to tremble in his grasp. He doesn’t even notice Cardia pouting and trying to reach up and grasp the fork out of his hand. “--your cooking is TERRIBLE!” There, he’s said it. It’s out in the world. He can’t hold it in anymore!!! “We… we’ve all tried it! You… y-you cook _toxic waste_!” 

All of a sudden, the corner of Van’s mouth twitches, and Lupin starts to reach the very cusp of understanding what it is he’s recognizing in that expression. “Cardia hasn’t tried it,” he says, and his hand reaches out and rests on the top of her head as she successfully steals her fork back from Lupin and returns to eating with it. “Looks like she doesn’t agree.” His mouth twitches even harder as he adds, “Maybe just needed the right audience.” 

The right… audie… 

Lupin stares. 

The tone of Van’s expression finally clicks. 

Mischief, that’s what he’s seeing. Like his own. Smug damn _mischief_. 

This. 

Absolute. 

Bastard.

“YOU DID IT ON **PURPOSE**?!” he squawks loud enough to rattle the dinnerware on the table. 

Van has one hand tucked under his opposite elbow, and the other hand is curled and pressed with a knuckle against his mouth, his eyes closed and his shoulders starting to shake. 

Lupin is going to lose his entire damn m i n d.

“V A N!” is all he has time to say before his impulsiveness gets the better of him and he leaps at his friend(???!?!?!?) with hands outstretched to commit murder. 

Van is still far faster than any of them could ever hope to be, though, and he’s halfway around the table in the span of time it takes Lupin to blink twice, though he’s standing as still again as if he hadn’t moved at all by the time Lupin realizes and stops. 

“You’re a hundred years too soon to catch me, Arsene,” he teases, folding his arms across the back of a dining chair and leaning on it, blue-violet eyes glimmering beneath his glasses with a playfulness that Lupin thought _he_ alone in this house possessed. 

What even has become of his life? 

He tugs a little at his collar, suddenly and inexplicably hot under it, and thinks somewhere at the back of his mind that Van was somehow _easier_ to deal with when he was full of angst.


	3. Chapter 3

These two incidents combined trip up Lupin so badly that he doesn’t ever fully recover. 

He’s used to doing the teasing, not BEING teased, and the last person he EVER expected to be teasing him is _Abraham Damn Van Helsing_. As if Herlock Sholmes messing with him wasn’t bad enough! (When a second letter from the latter arrives with a modified bill that isn’t even a TENTH of the price of the original, Lupin isn’t certain whether to feel relief that he won’t be indebted to Sholmes for the rest of his life or to burn the paper on reflex at the realization that Sholmes has successfully toyed with him. A g a i n.)

It doesn’t help that Lupin’s confusion draws him to steal more glances than usual at his gun-slinging friend. 

It double doesn’t help that his gun-slinging friend is already looking back at him at least half the time when he does, with an expression in his eyes that Lupin feels he could understand if he wanted to and. Definitely. Does not want to. 

Is maybe not prepared to.

The other half of the time, though, Van is looking at Cardia, and Lupin can’t help but do much the same. 

To see her living, really _living_ her life for the first time, free to touch and interact not only with them but with the entire world around her in a way she never before could… free in the knowledge she’ll never harm another living soul again by the mere touch of her skin… it’s a gift more beautiful than any of them could ever have imagined, and her vibrancy is so great that Lupin feels she could illuminate the dawn each day without even the sun to aid her. 

He aches, sometimes, seeing her and Van with their fingers tenderly interlaced and Van’s head bent to whisper sweet things in her ear… but Lupin wouldn’t trade her happiness for anything. 

What he is entirely unprepared for is the sensation of the ache beginning to increase to twofold what it once was. 

Cardia will laugh or sing or do a little dance and Lupin will feel his heart go tumbling head over heels for her all over again, throbbing with a repeating chant of how she’s not for him. 

Then his gaze will slide sideways and catch the fond expression on Van’s face as he, too, watches over Cardia, eyes soft at the edges in a way never seen before, and Lupin’s heart will skitter and ache all over again. 

He wonders what it means, and before he can even answer himself, he buries it under another hare-brained scheme of some ilk or another, busying his mind and his hands with books and blueprints and stealing from the rich so that he cannot dwell on the softer, more difficult things in life. 

\--

It’s inevitable that they all eventually decide to take Cardia to the beach. 

She has seen many bodies of water before, but she has never before had occasion to swim, and the boys are more than eager to introduce her to the joys of sun, sand, and water. 

So they get her her very own first swimming suit and they pile up in Impey’s terrible automobile with, somehow, the owner himself tied to the back of the car screaming and Saint-G driving in his stead, Fran riding passenger and Cardia sandwiched between Van and Lupin in the back. 

(It likely has more to do with the perverted commentary regarding Cardia’s swimsuit than it does with the lack of a proper sixth seat.) 

All of them dress appropriately for the outing, but not all of them participate in the actual act of getting fully into the water: Saint-Germain wishes them all well and then deposits himself comfortably on a nearby dock with a fishing pole, and really, none of them can actually quite imagine him splashing around in the water anyway - it seems like a sight that would be far more unsettling than it would be endearing. Fran, too, is a bit reluctant, albeit rather than avoiding the water entirely, he settles into the shallows, sitting in the wet sand with the water rolling in and out over his legs, content to watch the rest of them enjoy themselves. 

Impey, of course, is the first in, yelling with joy in the bright sun and running with a speed only a vampire could, plowing into the waves with still more whoops and hollers. 

Van seems to be skeptical of such an activity, one hand on his hip… but Cardia points at the water with sparkling jade eyes and latches onto his free hand with her other, and soon he’s laughing in exasperation and stumbling along behind her to the place where Fran is at the water’s edge. 

Lupin, though, is… distracted, to say the least. 

He was exactly as prepared for the sight of Van Helsing half-naked in swim trunks (okay like one-quarter-naked) and a completely open button-up t-shirt as he was for the sight of Cardia in a frilly polka-dot bikini. 

Which is to say, _not at all_.

His thoughts are stuck somewhere between “hot damn” and “vague sadness,” as he both appreciates the way his two dear friends are… decked out right now, and regrets that he in the end has no business doing that at all. 

The sunlight that beats down on him is suddenly blocked, just a bit, by shadow, and Lupin blinks out of his daze to find Van standing at his side, arms crossed. 

“What’s that dumb look for?” 

“D-dumb?! For YOUR information, I was simply admiring the beautiful view! A gentleman thief appreciates the finer things in life!” Lupin asserts, and hopes Van takes it to mean Lupin was enjoying the water. 

Van doesn’t seem convinced, per se, but he sighs and drops the question. “Well quit admiring and come in, already. Cardia’s gonna be disappointed if you just sit out here gawking.” 

Lupin looks at Van, looks at Cardia, and then looks at Van again, his heart squeezing in that painful way he’s only recently become familiar with. “All in good time! As soon as I’ve had my fill of the--” is all he manages to get out before he finds himself hoisted off the ground like a sack of potatoes and tossed right over Van’s shoulder. 

“Oi?! Van?! Van, what the _hell_ \--” he splutters and yelps, to no avail: Van just marches in a straight line towards the water and waves… beyond the edge of the sand, into the shallows, and then even beyond that, all the way until the water reaches his waist… at which point he plucks Lupin back off his shoulder and drops him neatly into the water’s icy embrace. 

Lupin breeches the surface with a shocked, offended, and altogether horrified gasp as the sun-heat on his skin suddenly gives way to the cold of the sea, his hands wrapped around himself and his now-drenched tanktop and binder, his normally perfect hair drenched and in his eyes, leaving him to look little better than a drowned rat. 

Van is smirking down at him, hands on _both_ hips now, clearly not even the slightest bit remorseful. 

He thinks he can hear Cardia in near-tears of restrained laughter somewhere in the distance.

Impey’s laughter isn’t restrained at all. 

“ _V a n!_ ” he yells for what feels like the hundredth time in the last month. “What was that for, you absolute barbarian?!” 

“I said come in,” Van replies, as if this explains everything. “You didn’t.” 

Lupin wishes that he couldn’t feel his face starting to turn red, but he can, he v e r y can, and he tries desperately to think of anything besides the feeling of being lifted and carried by the smug man in front of him. 

“I was GETTING TO THAT!”

Van shrugs. “You were slow.” 

“I s-swear to G-G o d,” Lupin chatters, his arms even tighter across himself now as the chill sets in further. “O-one of these d-days you’re gonna find i-itching powder in your b-b-bed.” 

Van seems interested in the way Lupin shivers and spectacularly fails to be intimidating in the midst of it, a thoughtful sound. “You cold, there, disaster thief? Thought you’d be used to toughing the elements or somethin.” 

Lupin is about to tersely inform him that Lupin likes to PREPARE for the elements that he’s going to be facing, but before he can, Van turns and cups one hand to the side of his mouth like a speaker, raising his voice. “Oi, Cardia! Come here!” 

Lupin’s mouth snaps shut, and he jerks his head around to watch in shock as Cardia - now in a little handy innertube of some cute design that Impey made for her - kicks her way over to the two of them as obediently as a puppy, looking up to Van with a questioning smile on her face. 

“This idiot cat is cold,” Van tells her, lifting Lupin under his armpits as easily as if he is indeed no bigger or heavier than a cat… and dropping him right into the center of the innertube with Cardia. 

Cardia squeaks, but Lupin flat out y o w l s in protest, and then immediately hates himself for proving Van’s sudden nickname more than apt. He scrambles to clutch the side of the inner tube he now faces, his back and shoulders pressed squarely against Cardia’s own, which only serves to make his neck start to go as red as his swim trunks, too.

Still. She _is_ very warm. 

He wishes that didn’t inspire the feelings in him that it does. 

“Cardia…” he rasps, noticing that his chattering is already starting to subside simply from the act of sharing body heat with her, “please inform this absolute _ruffian_ that he could stand to be far gentler!” 

“Vaaan…” Cardia says almost immediately, a smile evident in her voice. “Be nice to Lupin…” 

Van stands beside the innertube, now centered where he can see Cardia (who is looking up at him) to the left, and Lupin (who is most decidedly n o t looking at him) to the right. He gives Cardia a crooked smile, and then his eyes slide over to Lupin. “I _am_ being nice.” 

Lupin does not like the way he says that. 

He does not care for that shit AT ALL. 

He reflects on how much he had once laughed at the Van Helsing Cannon and wonders if this is karmic retribution. 

The longer he dangles in the water with Cardia and feels her gently kicking legs unintentionally weaving back and forth between his with gentle brushes of bare skin, the more he believes it surely must be. 

“Can you not swim, either?” Cardia’s innocent and curious voice drifts from behind him, dragging him out of his miserable pity-party, and he huffs in response.

“Of course the great Arsene Lupin can swim!” he informs her. “I was simply unprepared to be tossed into icy death like yesterday’s newspaper!” 

Cardia giggles at that, and despite himself, he can’t help but break into a small smile of his own at the sound. Saint-Germain may have proved the existence of magic in the world, but Lupin thinks that no magic in this, or any other world, could match the magic of Cardia’s laughter. 

“You were slow!” she says then, in direct echo of what Van had said, and Lupin realizes she really genuinely was in on it the whole damn time, and does not need to look up at all to know that the Van in question has that damn smirk back on his face. 

He wants to say something sassy and sulking in answer, but before he can, Van again interrupts him… this time by lifting a short rope that Lupin hadn’t even noticed out of the water, which reveals itself to be directly linked to a little loop attached to the outer side of the inner-tube. The lead is in fact fastened right in front of where Lupin clings, and as Van starts to step backwards in the water and drag the lead with him, Lupin’s side of the inner-tube turns to face him directly, leaving Lupin spluttering and helpless all over again.

“Gah! I didn’t agree to this ride! Let me off!” he complains, in distress that has nothing to do with being dragged through the water and everything to do with being dragged through the water while face to face with a view like Van, who is now himself very wet and very still wearing an open shirt and very hasn’t stopped smirking down at Lupin at a l l.

With Van in front of him and Cardia at his back, Lupin is stuck between a hard place and a soft one, and he thinks this gentleman’s heart might finally give up the ghost. 

\--

Eventually he manages to extricate himself from his own personal hell and go flop down on his back in the sand with nothing to steam his vision but the bright sun above. Impey comes running up some unknown minutes later, yelling and hollering and joking as usual, proceeding to bury Lupin in a sand grave and leaving nothing exposed but his head. (Lupin informs Impey that if he sculpts any form of breasts onto this sand mound, Lupin will show Impey new places his favorite wrench can fit.) 

In the toasty warmth of his sandbed, Lupin finally starts to relax a little, soothed and comfortable, his eyes slipping downward as if to allow him to doze. 

Then Cardia and Van return from the water as a joint unit and, for some godforsaken reason, decide to seat themselves to either side of Lupin’s head.

“My peace and quiet…” he mourns aloud, to the sound of one snort and one giggle respectively, and closes his eyes fully but now with no intention to _sleep_.

“Saint-Germain said there’s ice cream in the ice chest!” Cardia explains, turning around where she kneels and pushing herself onto all fours to reach for the chest in question, which sits just behind Lupin beneath the shade of an umbrella on a picnic blanket. 

“Is that so…” Lupin notes that his voice has gotten especially good at pouting lately. He’s not really sure how to feel about that. 

“Mmhn!” Their girl’s voice is cheerful as ever. She hums to herself as she fishes out some sort of ice cream pops from the chest’s depths, handing one to Van and keeping the other for herself. “Do you want one, Lupin?” Her voice then subsides into little sounds of delight as she begins to lick the ice pop. 

Lupin makes just enough motion with his shoulders to cause the sand on him to rise and fall. “No hands.” He does not feel particularly inclined to expose… any of himself, right now, just for the sake of getting a sweet treat. Not with _these_ two sitting so near. 

“Do you want to share mine?” Her tone is innocent and genuine, as it always is, clearly thinking nothing of making such an offer to him. 

He sees the motion of her holding the ice pop out to him, just near where he’d be able to reach it if he lifted his head. Just where he’s able to make out the melt-marks of her mouth in the top of the ice cream. 

He can’t do this.

He can’t go on like this. 

He WILL die and that’s a promise. 

He opens his mouth to protest. Nothing comes out. 

“Try it,” says Van, _not_ so innocent, that stupid hint of knowing mischief at the corners of his mouth when Lupin’s eyes slide sideways to glare at him. “It’s good.” Van then reaches over to touch Cardia’s wrist with his fingers, pushing her hand down - and pushing the ice pop she offered directly against Lupin’s lips. 

He opens his mouth in sheer self-defense, as his hands-less options are to A) open his mouth and eat the ice cream or B) let the ice cream melt all over his chin and make an absolute mess, which he can’t b e a r to think about, not with them _watching him_!!!

But it is.

Good, that is.

The ice cream pop is good. 

He just wishes the _delivery didn’t make him feel a very specific type of way too_. 

Van keeps his hand, and thus Cardia’s hand, right where it is, watching Lupin with that Look that Lupin keeps avoiding letting himself fully understand but keeps getting closer to fully recognizing anyway with each passing day. Lupin can’t figure out which is going to melt and disappear completely first: him or the ice cream. All he can really do is keep taking it, and _isn’t that a hellish thought and a half._

Eighty-four years later or so, Van finally seems satisfied, and releases his grip on Cardia’s hand to signal her to take her ice cream back. Lupin is shocked to see that he’s only taken a couple of bite’s worth from the top of it. He wonders if time magic exists in the world. Specifically, the kind that slows it down way too far. 

And then he becomes aware that despite his best efforts, some of the ice cream has dripped down over his lower lip and onto his chin regardless, and he makes a frustrated sound, trying to catch it up with his tongue (he cannot.) 

Which might have been kind of okay maybe, if it weren’t for the two thumbs that approach him from either side of his head at the same time to swipe it away for him. _This_ was clearly not planned, as Lupin then watches Van and Cardia looking across at each other in surprise, only to start laughing at their accidental synchronization. 

Which he ALSO might have maybe survived except that THEN he has to watch Van, pointedly looking at Cardia, licking his thumb clean of the collected ice cream. Lupin’s eyes slide automatically over to the girl herself, who is… blushing, blushing like absolute crazy, but… still giggling, somehow, just before licking her own thumb clean in direct mimic of Van. Her jade eyes suddenly drift down to meet Lupin’s golden ones, and he sees the first glimpse of an expression in her that he has only ever seen in Van. 

The very same one he doesn’t want to acknowledge in the first place. 

Because to acknowledge that expression for what he _might_ think it was _if_ he allowed himself to give it a name is to acknowledge a hope in his heart that he doesn’t dare to have. 

And also because to acknowledge it would also mean being forced to acknowledge to himself that he is so horny right now he could run a matador through. 


	4. Chapter 4

After that day, Lupin can’t seem to catch a break anymore.

Specifically, in regards to them touching him.

_Both of them._

It isn’t even BIG touches, it’s just!!! 

Like at meal time, when Van gets up and takes his plate but takes Lupin’s plate too, and somehow manages to brush the backs of their hands together in doing it. 

Or when Cardia is still rubbing sleep from her eyes in the morning, coming from her bedroom for the first time that day and passing Lupin in the hall and taking a moment to latch onto his sleeve, giving him a wide, drowsy little grin before letting him go and continuing on her way. 

Van patting Lupin’s shoulder in brief praise for some job well done, Cardia reaching up to straighten Lupin’s bowtie, Van resting a hand on Lupin’s head to lean over him and read the newspaper that Lupin is currently holding. 

Sometimes he thinks they have no idea they’re doing it, little accidental bumps and moments in time and seeming innocence and genuineness.

Other times he thinks he catches fleeting gazes and hints of mischief and Cardia biting her lip and Van’s hand resting against his own mouth as if to hide whatever he’s currently doing with it.

_He. Can’t. STAND IT!!!_

Lupin has always prized his sanity as being a bit above most of the group’s, except perhaps for Fran’s, but lately… lately it feels like his sanity is slipping through his fingers as easily as water, perhaps never to return. 

It finally explodes out of him one day, as Van and Cardia somehow end up to either side of Lupin on the sofa, admiring a schematic in his hands, with both of them squeezing in even tighter against his sides to point and ask questions, especially to each other.

Lupin’s shoulders inch higher and higher towards his ears, the steam valve in his brain getting dangerously close to screaming--

\--until it bursts entirely.

“Are you doing this ON PURPOSE?” he says, and his voice cracks with the desperation in it. 

Van and Cardia pull back, temporarily startled… but Van relaxes again within seconds, propping his elbow on one of his knees and his cheek against his knuckles. 

“Mm. Are you enjoying it on purpose?” 

Lupin’s jaw about damn near drops off his entire face. He doesn’t know what the hell he expected either of them to say but it sure as hell wasn’t that. “Enj--ENJOYING?! I absolutely am n--”

“It always makes you look so happy, though…” Cardia offers shyly from the opposite side of him.

His loose jaw snaps s h u t. 

“She likes it. I like it. You like it.” Van’s voice is as matter of fact as ever, like he’s telling Lupin how many bullets he bought this week. “Seems like a win-win to me.” 

“B-but! But that doesn’t! I mean this doesn’t--it doesn’t work that way!” Lupin cries… then belatedly adds, in an involuntarily small voice, “...does it?”

He feels, rather than sees, one of Cardia’s warm little hands pry Lupin’s hand free from the schematic so that she can slip her fingers between his. 

A larger hand suddenly finds its way onto Lupin’s hair.

“Do you want it to work that way?” Van’s words, as always, cut straight to the point.

It’s a blessing and a curse. 

Lupin stares down at his lap, his heart beating about a thousand miles a minute, and he can now see the shape of her hand and he can feel the weight and warmth of Van’s and he’s terrified to think that he might be dreaming right now, or worse, that he’s awake and he’s just being pranked again. 

Van’s fingers curl into a loose fist and rap rap rap with a gentle set of impacts against the crown of Lupin’s head.

“You’re real good at thinking,” Van says, “and that’s the problem. Stop thinking so hard.” 

“It’s okay to say how you feel…” Cardia adds, squeezing Lupin’s hand. “You always make sure we’re happy, Lupin… but we want you to be happy, too…” 

His heartbeat gets even more erratic, beating against his ribcage like a bird trying desperately to escape, a feverish flush creeping into his cheeks and neck and ears and making him sweat.

“...well…” Lupin says, and he has to wet his lips to continue, hating that his voice cracks again, “I don’t… hate it…” 

He had been entirely honest with himself when he’d only had feelings for Cardia. That was easy. That made sense. That fit the types of things he’d learned so far about the world, the internal rules he’d established. 

Then his feelings for Van slid in right alongside, neither outshining nor being left behind by the love he already felt for her, causing Lupin to suddenly feel as though he understood nothing at all. 

Van chuckles, his hand sliding down Lupin’s hair in a brief pet before his arm entirely slides over Lupin’s shoulders in a side-hug, and Cardia now tucks the hand she holds between both of her own and presses herself all the more tightly to Lupin’s side. 

“That’s a good start,” Van says, and Lupin sits and reflects on his entire life and tries to predict whether he, the master gentleman thief, is going to wake up alive the next morning. 

\--

For better or for worse, Van and Cardia seem to know exactly where Lupin’s threshold of destruction lies, for they do no more than sit close to him for the remainder of that afternoon, their hands remaining on him where they were. 

It’s clear that they want to give him time to process, and for that, he is eternally grateful.

It simply had not even occurred to Lupin that this… this three-sided… unnamed… t h i n g… was even an option that existed anywhere in the realm of reality. Yet when he stops to think about it… why is that, precisely, that he didn’t think it possible? Simply because others have always done it another way? Arsene Lupin _prides_ himself on thinking outside the box! So how is it that he has simply taken for granted that a single person could only ever love one other soul alone? 

Surely, after everything they have been through, after everything they have fought through - surely they cannot begrudge themselves the chance to be happy.

Even if that happiness lies outside the realm of convention. 

Why, their entire found-family lies well outside of the bounds of convention to begin with! 

Lupin spends the rest of the day lost in thought - deep thoughts, incredibly introspective thoughts, but… not negative thoughts. 

And when the following morning comes and all of them have gathered at the breakfast table once more, with Lupin being the last to arrive in the dining room… he takes a breath, walks past Van, stopping just long enough to forcibly shove the man’s glasses down his nose (to a satisfying sound of disgruntlement), taking note of the curiously empty seat that lies between Van and Cardia, reaching out to tuck a stray lock of hair behind Cardia’s ear… and then settling himself into that empty seat with a small smile on his face, lifting his utensils into his hands. 

Perhaps he is more prepared to acknowledge these thoughts and feelings than he first predicted he would be, after all.


End file.
